


Museum

by GoatVibesOnly



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Date Night, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:47:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25188937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoatVibesOnly/pseuds/GoatVibesOnly
Summary: Cecil surprises Carlos with a date. However, this is Night Vale, so things don't go to plan.
Relationships: Carlos/Cecil Palmer
Comments: 4
Kudos: 44





	Museum

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this back in 2015 at the request of one of my friends and then promptly forgot about it for 5 years. It still holds up pretty well and I laughed while reading it, so I figured it's worth a post. Besides fixing a few grammatical errors, the story is exactly as I wrote it in 2015. Enjoy!

“Cecil, are you sure this date has to do with science?”

“Dear Carlos, I am certain. As certain as one can be, considering that no one knows anything at all, in the very least. Taking that into account, I’d say that I’m, oh, fifty five to sixty two-point-three percent sure? And if you don’t like it, you can go back to your lab, I promise. I understand how important your science is to you. Science is very important to me, too, you know. I am very into science these days.”

“Can you at least tell me where we’re going?”

“We’re here.” Cecil points to a building right across the street. 

Carlos squints. “That one, right there?”

(Carlos thinks his glasses prescription might need to be fine-tuned, but the only optometrist in the town was found hiding in a corner of her basement, chanting, “They’re here. They’re _here_. They’re coming, always coming, they cannot be stopped. Praise the smiling gods, they cannot be stopped! They cannot-” And then she she started sobbing so hard that her words became unintelligible. So he’ll have to do with squinting through his out-of-date, battered up glasses until another optometrist is found running around in the deserts outside of town, captured, and tamed.)

“Yes, that one.” Cecil can’t stop the grin from spreading over his face. “Perfectly imperfect Carlos, we are currently right outside of the Museum of Forbidden Technology!”

Carlos frowns. “Forbidden technology is not science. I am a scientist, I study science. Not forbidden things. Besides, it’s _forbidden_.” When Cecil’s face crumples, Carlos quickly adds, “Not that I don’t appreciate the thought! I’m sure I will be inspired to perform all kinds of scientific experiments when I see these forbidden technologies.” He squeezes his boyfriend’s hand. “Will you lead the way?”

“With pleasure.”

The door is one big slab of solid platinum with no clear hinge or handle, but somehow the two of them manage to find their way inside anyways. Inside the museum, it’s cool and quiet, a pleasant respite from the hot noon sun beating down on them outside.

(Only beating on them metaphorically, thank the beams. There have been incidents when bits of the sun have inexplicably fallen to Earth, only to beat the first unfortunate soul to happen upon it senseless before falling just as inexplicably back into the sun. But that hasn’t happened for _at least_ , six months, so what’s the likelihood that it’ll happen again?)

The ticket booth is empty. The entire museum seems eerily empty, honestly. Cecil shrugs and mutters, “Those on the forbidden technology staff are _so_ bad at doing their job. Geez, it’s not like their job is forbidden or anything, right?”

“Actually, it is,” points out Carlos.

Cecil blinks, then grins. “You are so smart!”

“I’m a scientist. It’s my job to know things. Or rather, to be as close to knowing things as one can be when no one truly knows anything.”

“Well, this forbidden technology won’t know itself,” says Cecil, smiling gallantly and linking his arm with Carlos’s. “So I suggest we get started learning as many forbidden things as we can.”

* * *

“Carlos?”

“Yes, Cecil?”

“What exactly are you doing, lovely Carlos?”

Carlos straightens up from his crouch down next to and pockets his measuring tape. “I was taking notes. Very scientific notes. I would explain exactly what I’m doing, but it would take too long.”

Cecil looks grief-stricken. “You were _measuring_ the forbidden object!”

“I was doing science.”

“But you can’t perform science on a forbidden object! That’s, well, forbidden!”

Carlos smiles and sighs at the same time. He does that, sometimes, when Cecil says something that he thinks is very unscientific. It makes Cecil’s heart skip a beat, but it also deflates a little, too. He doesn’t want lovely Carlos to think that he’s not interested in science, when he is! He is so into science.

“Cecil, that’s not a forbidden anything. It’s a black box. Inside the box is the forbidden technology.”

Cecil looks around to see if anyone would pop out from behind the life-size cardboard cutout of the secret police near the entrance (complete with a large, cartoon speech bubble that reads, _"Don't forget, it's forbidden!"_ ) and correct them on the law. But no one does.

In fact, he doesn’t see anyone. They’re still totally alone. 

“Well, if you say so, Carlos.”

“I do say so. I am as certain of that as I can be.”

Carlos moves on to the next black box and stares at it intently. He steps to the left and stares at it some more. Tilts his head to the side. Cecil comes up beside him and does the same.

“Carlos?”

“Yes, Cecil?”

“This looks like just another big, black box to me.”

“It is just another big, black box.”

There’s a pause. “Do you think that it’s a particularly _interesting_ big, black box?”

“Honestly… no. And I’m only saying that because a scientist is always truthful. That’s the eighth thing a scientist is.”

“Good, because I think they’re some of the most uninteresting big, black boxes I have ever seen.”

Now it’s Carlos’s turn to do a double take. “You do? I was only feigning interest because I thought-”

“Beams, no! These boxes are awful! If I had wanted to look at black and unlabeled boxes, I would have taken us to the Museum of Black and Unlabeled Boxes!”

“There’s a museum for black and unlabeled boxes?”

“Of course!s. Ever since the statue of Pamela Winchell mysteriously turned into a pile of boxes, we’ve had more than we’ve known what to do with! So now we have a museum of them.” He hesitates. “Dear Carlos, I know this date was a bit of a flop, but would you like to go visit the Museum of Black and Unlabeled Boxes with me? I have day passes!”

“I’d love to.”

“I’m sure they’re much more scientifically interesting than this museum is,” says Cecil. He stops in his tracks. Carlos practically runs into him. “Oh, no.”

“Cecil? What’s wrong?”

“I just remembered. Perfect Carlos, I am so sorry.”

“What? Cecil, what is it?”

“I read an announcement on the radio earlier this week, but I had forgotten. Dear Carlos, all museums are illegal today.”

“Illegal?”

“Yes, Carlos.”

Carlos sniffs and adjusts his glasses. Cecil swears he sees him smirking, but that doesn’t make any sense, because who’s glad to hear that museums are illegal? Especially while they’re in one?

“I guess this means we’re on a criminal date then?”

Cecil nods. 

“Well, we have to go on one municipally-approved criminal date every year, don’t we? This can be ours.”

“But this crime hasn’t been municipally approved-”

“That makes it a double crime. Come on, there are some unlabeled boxes with our names on them.”

“Oh, Carlos, you’re so handsome when you break the law.”

“So are you. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”


End file.
